The Houghton Mifflin best-of series is not new; indeed, the annual books of short stories, essays and sports writing are starting to seem somewhat commonplace. Still, for good, thoughtful reading, there's really nothing else like this annual essay anthology. Writers from hundreds of periodicals are considered for representation, and while there's always a big name like Joan Didion or John Updike being reprinted out of Harper's or the Atlantic, absolutely anyone from anywhere may be considered if they're interesting enough. Past years have seen writers holding forth on subjects as rich and varied as the Kennedy single-bullet theory, the futility of a military education, the self-images of dogs, and the AIDS epidemic in Haiti. This year's anthology is particularly fine: Julie Baumgold discovers fresh meat on the corpse of the Elvis myth, Gordon Grice divines the non-existence of God from a spiderweb, Joseph Epstein traces the history and purpose of napping, Nicholson Baker ruminates on the cyclical nature of the printed word—all under the commendable hand of this year's editor Geoffrey C. Ward. Essay collections, when done well, are special: They are the distilled and concentrated thoughts of talented, insightful people writing on just about any topic, urgent or not—all lent importance by the lucidity of the author's voice. Few are done as well as this consistently excellent, consistently overlooked annual. Read it, and then find and read every other edition available.